1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system and in particular to a computer implemented method and apparatus for managing data. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer usable program code for aggregating data.
2. Description of the Related Art
A data warehouse is a storage system that is typically used to store data outside of the operational system in which the data is typically used or generated. In warehousing data, data was previously placed onto tapes when the data became inactive. Currently, a data warehouse is used to store data over different periods of time, allowing a user to generate queries to access the data. Also, by combining data from multiple sources, an ability to cross reference the data from the different sources also is possible. Additionally, with a data warehouse system, a platform is present to merge data from multiple current applications as well as integrate multiple versions of the same application.
For example, an organization may migrate to a new business application that replaces an old main frame-based legacy application. The data warehouse may serve as a platform to combine the data from the old and new applications. One example of a use of a data warehouse is putting together patient data from different locations for a medical system having multiple locations and multiple specialties. By collecting data from the different locations and placing the data into a data warehouse, patterns and insights into different facets such as patient billing and treatment data may be obtained.
Many different products are present for providing data warehouse functions. For example, DB2 Warehouse Manager is a product from International Business Machines Corporation that provides an ability to build, manage, and access data warehouses.
One current problem with these systems is that data is typically collected in a fine granular format from the different sources. For example, data may be collected in terms of minutes or seconds. As a result, large amounts of data are stored within the data warehouse. Issues arise as to how to maintain and keep all of this data. These issues become greater as large amounts of data are accumulated over a long period of time, such as months or years. Data accumulated for months may result in too much data being present to allow all of the data to be accessed online. As a result, in many cases, older data must be moved to a secondary type of storage, such as a tape or optical disk. Another issue present with currently available data warehouse systems is the actual collection of data from the different sources.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have an improved computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer usable program code for implementing a data warehouse system.